Sleep of the Just
by Mark of the Asphodel
Summary: It takes more than good intentions to settle a war. It takes more than a simple duel to settle an account. A look behind the scenes of Magvel's reconstruction. Not romance, all involved pairings are canon.
1. Chapter 1

**Sleep of the Just**

I do not own _Fire Emblem _or any of its characters.

Warnings: No pairings that aren't possible in the canon game endings. If you're looking for Innes and Ephraim to get it on, this is not the story you're looking for. Fans of Ephraim, take note- this is from the perspective of Innes. You may not like what you see... but take it all with a shaker of Frelian sea salt.

* * *

_Prologue_

"I yield. Forgive me, Eirika. I am not worthy of your hand."

Pebbles ground into his knees, and the silvered tip of a lance-head rested at his throat, but Innes of Frelia felt no fear. The face of his enemy showed neither bloodlust nor calculation, only a puzzled sort of exasperation. Innes kept his own face composed and looked up with a steady gaze into Ephraim's sharp blue eyes. The drama of the moment was perfect, until Ephraim wiped the perspiration from his face in a gesture both unbecoming and coarse.

"Get up, you fool," he muttered.

Innes remained on his knees; it was only when Eirika herself stepped down from the royal box and took his hand that he allowed himself to rise. Eirika then joined hands with her brother as well, and they stood on the field with Eirika as the bridge between them. The spectators responded with cheers and applause for this show of grace from the princess of Renais. Innes forced himself to smile at the wavering banners that fluttered from each tier of the stands; he could not look at the blurred faces of the crowd, nor could he stand to gaze another moment upon Ephraim. He kept focused on Eirika; she gave him a look that was not regretful, but neither could it be called scornful. Nor was it pitying. There seemed to be a question in her eyes that Innes could not and would not answer.

Innes retired to his room within Mulan Castle, where the stout walls of the border post shut out the spectators' useless clamor. He closed the door in his own sister's face, but he'd asked Tana repeatedly not to follow him. Innes seated himself in the carved chair the Frelian garrison had provided their prince, grasped the armrests with shaking hands, and stared at a point of nothingness well short of the opposite wall. He didn't feel like someone whose aspirations had been shattered; rather, he felt like someone who had fallen from a great height only to be caught by some invisible hand when mere feet above the ground. The great plunge had happened, but he had a moment to pause and reflect before being dashed upon the earth.

"It worked," he whispered to himself. "Everything worked as planned. This was a triumph."

And yet, there remained a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

-x-

Innes found his violent infatuation for the Renaitian princess to be a passing affliction; once they were no longer in proximity on a daily basis the spell on his heart was broken and Innes came to his senses. The epiphany did not come all at once, as a thunderburst; rather, it stole over him like a creeping shadow, tainting his days with an apprehension he never had felt before, even in the rathole of Carcino when hope of survival seemed a fool's bauble. Finally he woke one night drenched in his own fear and realized that he had committed an error that was, in its way, as grave as any misjudgment in the heat of battle. Innes, who took such pride in the stream of information that flowed around him and allowed him to categorize the world in brief statements of fact, to separate the good from the base, the useful from the wretched- Innes had been blind to a part of himself, that called itself Love but in truth was Delusion. And he had, loudly and emphatically, committed himself to Delusion.

Yet Innes could not go back on his word, not after his confession to Eirika on the eve of their victory over the Demon King. As the day of his promised duel with Ephraim drew near, Innes spent long hours each night turning the dilemma over in his mind. He could best the prince of Renais, take Eirika as his wife, and glory in his public humiliation of Ephraim. He did not love Eirika, but he was fond of her, and the alliance would please both Renais and Frelia. Yet, as he reflected on his conversation with Eirika in the Darkling Woods, he remembered the shock in her face as he spoke, and he realized that her words were not those of a woman in love. He might not love Eirika, but neither did she carry any ardor for him.

Once this sunk in, Innes fancied that he might, upon defeating Ephraim, nobly allow his hard-won bride to choose her own destiny. That carried its own risks, though. Innes might find, in the heat of victory, that he could not carry through with his plan. His heart had fooled him once already, in the months leading up to that moment in the Darkling Woods, and he could not trust it. And Eirika, upon seeing the clear superiority of Innes to her brother, might well decide that she _did_ find him an attractive proposition. By the time either of them repented of their haste, the papers would be signed and the marriage formally sealed.

The most appropriate strategy was the simplest: Innes could deliberately lose the duel to break his claim on Eirika's affections and thus end his suit without casting poor light upon the lady's honor. So, while Ephraim asked for their duel to be a saber match, in which neither had a clear advantage, Innes made a great show of insisting that the weapon of choice be the lance. To best the greatest lancer in Renais with his own weapon would have been a sweet triumph indeed, but Innes's request tilted the odds so that Ephraim would have to _try_ to lose. And since Ephraim would likely not have the sensitivity to do so, even if he believed Innes to be truly enamored of Eirika, Innes would simply have to put forth a good effort to obtain his convincing defeat.

True to form, Ephraim on the dueling ground conducted himself as though this were merely another one of their matches from days gone by, as if a man's future happiness were not on the line. Too graceless to throw the match in Innes's favor, too obtuse to sense any of the turmoil in his opponent's mind, Ephraim entered the fray like the overgrown puppy he was. It was only when Innes began to falter that a slightly sickened look crossed Ephraim's face, as though he didn't understand why either of them were doing this. Of course, he did not understand.

Innes placed his bets correctly; Ephraim might be a hard man to forgive, but he was a woefully easy man to play. Eirika, infinitely more complex than her lout of a brother, was not so predictable, and Innes felt he could trust her tangled emotions as little as he trusted his own. But Ephraim... he performed perfectly in the role Innes had assigned him. The victor's role. Innes raked his fingernails on the varnished wood of his chair. He had prepared mentally for the duel like a man readying himself for execution- or for suicide. Which, in a sense, it had been. When he emerged from his room, Innes of Frelia would no longer be what he was, or what he wanted to be. Innes would be, publicly and forever, the lesser man.

That it had been by his own choice was but a small comfort. Innes doubted a suicide enjoyed the moment of his death any better.

_End Prologue_

Well, here's my first foray into the world of Magvel. Many thanks to my beta, Writer Awakened! Anyway, this is the beginning of a three-part postwar slice of political intrigue, featuring Innes working with (and against) Ephraim to piece Magvel back together.


	2. Chapter 2

**Sleep of the Just**

I do not own _Fire Emblem_ or any of its characters.

Warnings: All pairings are canon, though some of them are not presented as mutually exclusive in this case. In other words, love triangles. Consider this your only warning.

* * *

_It could be you, it could be me_

_Working the door, drinking for free_

_Carrying on with your conspiracies_

_Filling the room with a sense of unease_

_Chapter One_

It was not difficult for Innes to feign a depression after the duel. Not difficult at all. On his return to the Frelian capital, Innes kept to his chambers. Meals were sent up to him, well-wishers were turned away from his apartments- though his informants were welcomed. Only at night did he emerge, slipping down to the practice-yard where he emptied one quiver of arrows after another into a target until either the target was obliterated or his arrows all were spent. The servants treated him as though this were normal behavior, which made it easier for Innes to continue the charade. Had they treated him as a child, or as some manner of invalid, he might have grown disgusted and given it up.

His sister, though, was bemused by his actions.

"Don't be silly," Tana pleaded with him. "Eirika didn't care about the outcome of that stupid duel. She won't reject you just because you lost to... to _him_."

Tana, at least, had learned to treat Ephraim's name like the most vile curse when in her brother's presence.

"Go to her, Innes. Talk with her. She _will_ love you, Innes."

At least Tana had the grace to admit that Eirika didn't love him at the present. But hope welled eternal in Tana's heart- it was so like her, to think a square might be made a circle if they all willed it.

But if Tana believed Innes to be wallowing in the grief of a love denied, their royal father saw otherwise. His pale eyes regarded Innes with little concern, only a silent acknowledgment that there was something more to all this than the failed suit for Eirika's hand. Innes wondered, at times, what twists King Hayden's own life had taken on the road to becoming the renowned Sage of Frelia. He'd gathered the experience and wisdom to see through his son's facade, that was for certain.

Hayden only once took Innes to task, and that was after the engagement fiasco. Innes found it all too easy to summon rage and loathing when Tana, after an indecent wait of a few scant months, announced her plans to become Queen of Renais. It took little effort for Innes to consume too much wine at the engagement feast, to sneer at Ephraim, to spill his drink on the young king's boots. His hangover the next morning was anything but a sham. But Innes stood tall before his father's throne- though his head spun and his stomach felt tied into knots- as Hayden looked him over with a steely unblinking gaze.

"I don't precisely know why you decided to act the fool last night, Innes, but I do know that you _chose_ that course of action. If thwarted love has sickened you, find yourself a remedy. In any event, I want no re-enactments of last night under my roof."

It was not, Innes decided, happenstance that the king had summoned Dame Vanessa to escort Innes back to his chambers to sleep off his hangover.

With Tana gone, Innes had one member fewer in his audience, one conduit fewer to spread rumors through the fine halls of other nations. His performance, such as it was, became more subtle, and the gray haze over his days seemed less a smokescreen and more a natural part of his being. He welcomed it- not the soul-consuming darkness of true despair, the kind of fear that made a literal demon of Lyon of Grado, but rather a comforting, shadowy gloom. In that gloom, there was no fear, no joy, no great heights or sickening depths. No black, no white... only gray. No news brought to Prince Innes could trouble his heart or stir the depths of his psyche. Every crisis was merely a puzzle that begged to be solved; some answers proved simple and definitive as mathematic equations, others as many-faceted as the philosophical issues he would discuss with Father Moulder. A spate of murders among the Carcinese council was an interesting challenge to unravel, while the Great Earthquake in Grado was more of a multi-headed conundrum. From the shadows, Innes found he could see more clearly than did the men who walked in bright light and bright colors- he saw the details and nuances that they missed when brilliance dazzled them.

Not that everything in his world was monochrome- Vanessa added a splash of color. Innes thought his father was, indeed, quite a wise man.

-x-

Innes did not attend his sister's wedding. His first diplomatic visit to the court of his brother-in-law was for the funeral of General Seth. This was an unremittingly tragic occasion; the still-young commander of the Renais knights had never recovered from a grave wound received at the outset of the war. He had borne that fatal injury without complaint through many battles, and so earned the admiration of all who served with him. Innes spoke briefly of Seth's virtues at the service, and not a word of it was flattery- though nothing said as much for Seth's value as did the bereavement of his mourners.

Eirika's eyes streamed with undisguised grief. She had loved the man; this love was never spoken of openly, but Innes had pieced the truth together from a myriad of fragments sent his way by his informants in Tana's retinue. There was nothing coarse in what they told him, naturally, and while Innes could not fathom the attraction any more than he understood Tana's affection for her husband, he at least could acknowledge the fact of it now.

She stood at his shoulder at the funeral feast, when the casket had been shut away behind polished marble and all the mourners tried to forget themselves with wine, slices of sugar cake, and war stories. She wore deep gray and violet- no princess of Renais might wear _black_ for a subject- and though the colors did not suit her, it hardly mattered. Her beauty had never lain solely on the surface; even in childhood Eirika had possessed more than mere prettiness, and now it seemed to him that all her losses had served to bring out some deeper beauty, akin to the holy aura of Saint Latona.

"Innes. This is perhaps not the time, but I must talk with you."

"Certainly, Eirika. I am at your disposal."

They walked to one of the courtyard gardens, where late-summer roses and lilies brightened the scarred castle walls. The decorative arch of one entrance had been blasted apart in the siege and was not yet repaired, and it lent the garden a sense that it was a place out of time. She spoke to him in a well-toned voice roughened only a little by grief, and the sound of it was enthralling.

"I have been selfish, Innes. I shouldn't have been so diffident to you, not when you bared your inner heart to me as you did. I was taken aback, Innes, but it was not... it was not appropriate, to respond as I have."

"There is nothing of selfishness in you," he said swiftly. "Your dedication to the welfare of your retainer speaks volumes of your true character."

"I owed him my life, Innes." She might have owed him that, but she had clearly given him more. Not her body, perhaps- it was unthinkable- but most definitely she had given Seth her heart.

"And for that, we all owe the general a debt." Sad, really, what the man had reaped for his dedication. Ephraim, in a typically pointless gesture, had granted Seth a posthumous title, but all it did was give the man a few more trappings at his funeral and a gravesite a few paces closer to the altar.

"Innes. I owed a debt to Seth that I could never fully repay, but he is now... at rest. I must consider my duties to all Renais, and not just to her general. If you still feel as you did... there is no need for another duel with my brother. I accept you."

Her beautiful voice still stirred him, her brilliant eyes appealed to him, bewitching even in her grief. But that door was closed and locked, and the words of denial came easily to him.

"Eirika, do not play the martyr for my sake. You are stricken with a terrible grief- see, you cannot keep from weeping even as you speak of your duty." He thought to place a reassuring hand upon her shoulders, decided against it, then added, "If I were you, I would spend a while someplace private, to collect my thoughts and decided on a clearheaded course for the future."

"Thank you, Innes."

He remembered her smile for a long, long time.

-x-

Vanessa's son lent Castle Frelia some of the cheer that had left it with Tana's departure. If ever Innes felt happy, it was watching Vanessa, a braid tumbling over one shoulder as she danced before the window with the babe in her arms, humming some tuneless bit of song. When Tana sent him a letter overflowing with love and praise for her own infant son, Innes penned a letter back consisting of one-third dry information and two-thirds praise for his own child. He knew it would discomfit straight-laced King Ephraim in the extreme. In between the lines extolling the newborn prince of Renais, Innes did find one key piece of intelligence from his sister- Eirika had retreated to Caer Pelyn, to find solace in the way of Valega. The news bothered him more than it ought to have.

Innes behaved himself perfectly through the feast wherein King Hayden proclaimed his final diplomatic triumph, the union of the heir of Frelia with the heiress of the Rausten Empire. He wasn't entirely lying when he told the delegation of Rausten bishops that he was pleased to be joined to their divine princess. Innes remembered L'Arachel as pretty, spirited, and surprisingly bold. She wasn't some drab creature dragged from a convent to the marriage bed; no, Innes could deal with Princess L'Arachel. It wasn't as though he had any illusions about her. Shortly after the wedding, King Hayden abdicated the throne to spend his remaining years in peace and comfort, and so Innes took up the reins of state without grief to trouble his heart.

Innes did not bother to keep his new bride separate from Vanessa; L'Arachel accepted the curiosity of the knight with a son and no husband, though she never appeared to follow the facts through to their logical conclusion. It was just as well. Life with the Princess of Rausten proved one long chain of side-stepping logic and avoiding the obvious. L'Arachel's strange ways suited him; she flitted across the continent, gadding about with a host of friends and acquaintances. It seemed to Innes this was the secret to their conjugal contentment; just when he was on the verge of becoming frustrated with her, L'Arachel's off-kilter mind would be taken by the fancy to visit Jehanna or Caer Pelyn or Carcino. Off she would go with her retainers in tow and a good deal of shouting. Innes thanked the Everlasting that neither of their children inherited that _laugh_ from L'Arachel. In the proper setting, that sound would send a _frisson_ of desire up his spine, but it was not a sound he wanted to hear from the lips of his offspring.

By his thirtieth year, Innes stood at the helm of the most prosperous nation in the continent. He earned a new name for himself- the Spider King of Frelia, secure at the center of a web whose strands reached from one coast of Magvel to the other. So what if the men of other nations deemed him a creeping thing of the shadows, a malignant creature compared to the splendid young lion of Renais? The Frelians themselves understood him. He'd secured for them peace, stability and great wealth in trade. He'd made a brilliant marriage, had provided both his realms with an heir- a boy for Frelia's throne, a girl for Rausten's. Besides, his people knew that blood and not ice water ran in his veins. They cheered Vanessa when she flew above the streets, even as the castle servants coddled her son.

After several years of mutual distrust, he even managed a rapport with the most difficult of his wife's servants. The man was, in essence, low-born Carcinese scum, but he did have talents, and Innes found a use for them. The Spider King found a use for everyone and everything in due time.

**End Chapter One**

Note: The epigraph comes from "Effigy" by Andrew Bird, off the album _Noble Beast_.


	3. Chapter 3

**Sleep of the Just**

I do not own _Fire Emblem_ or any of its characters.

Warning: more references to love triangles and some character death. Plus alcohol use and adults being adults. Enjoy!

* * *

_If you long to burn an effigy_

_It should be of a man who's lost his way_

_Chapter Two_

Frelia and Renais had enjoyed many years of friendship, and whatever his feelings for his neighboring king, Innes maintained that rapport. In spite of the kinship bonds, Innes and his relations seemed mostly to meet at great occasions of state, and most of those were funerals. Tana's proved the worst of these. If she had died in childbirth, Innes might have at least found it in him to truly loathe Ephraim, but Tana's fall from her pegasus might be blamed upon no one save Tana herself and the caprices of fate. Innes did his best not to look at his brother-in-law; Ephraim made for an uncomfortable sight in the stark black robes of deepest mourning, his hair cropped short like a penitent monk's. Instead, Innes looked straight ahead, only to have Ephraim's twin drift into his field of vision. Eirika seemed oddly remote- ageless rather than young, wreathed in the stylized serenity of a goddess on an icon. The man she'd finally taken as her husband, the cryptic sage of the mountains, stood alongside her enveloped in that same aura of detachment. Only their small daughter, who kept her face buried in her father's shoulder, gave evidence that these people were yet human.

And yet, once again, she wished to speak with him alone.

"You must help him, Innes."

He did not ask her how he might manage the job.

"He is my brother, the other half of myself, and yet..." She turned her head, and he felt he could _breathe_ in the strange presence she now carried with her. "We must each come to peace in our own way."

"I will do what I can."

"Thank you, Innes."

Even her smile had changed in some indefinable way. And Eirika turned away, went back to her husband and daughter to follow the path of Valega to peace. Innes, alone again, spun on his heel and went back on his way through the cool gray shadows.

-x-

The death of the Queen Consort of Renais caused much chatter but was of no real consequence. Tana had provided her husband two sons, and so fulfilled her dynastic role, and her story was in essence complete before the fatal tumble. The death of an old soldier in Grado caused far greater disturbance to the balance of power. Duessel had died peacefully of his age, and while of course there were the obligatory rumors of poison, they did not concern Innes. What did concern Innes, and should have had a like effect on his counterpart of Renais, was the unanimous sentiment that the late general had been the last honest man in Grado.

Ephraim had taken full charge of Grado's reconstruction- Frelia had supplied gold, and Jehanna mercenary police, and Rausten teachers and healers, but men of Renais did the bulk of the work, formed the core of the reconstruction forces. And fifteen years hence it was clear they'd made an utter mess of things. Grado was a structure with both leaking roof and flooded foundation, stricken with a creeping rot at all levels. The rot, Innes realized as information flowed in the wake of Duessel's death, would spread up to consume Renais and all of Magvel if not contained.

Grado needed a strongman to clean out its sewers, and none of the crowned heads upon Magvel could be that savior. Ephraim, still stumbling in the wake of Tana's death, had enough on his hands with Renais. Innes had the sprawling empire he shared with L'Arachel to manage- for certain _she_ was not the one governing her part of the realm. And the insular King of Jehanna wanted nothing to do with anything beyond his sand-strewn borders. At the thought of Jehanna, the correct solution dropped into Innes's mind, as surely as a piece fits into a puzzle.

He summoned his brother king to Mulan for an informal conference on the Grado situation.

"I have our man for Grado at the ready," he said without preamble. "General Gerik will restore order to the capital. He acts with my complete trust and that of King Joshua."

"Yes," said Ephraim, though he sounded more polite than certain. "Even my brother-in-law does speak well of him."

Perhaps it was the advice of the reclusive Mountain Sage that tipped the balance to Gerik, but Innes did have his way, and soon the Jehannan general was on his way south with orders to do whatever proved necessary to fumigate the swampland.

-x-

"This place you've sent me to is a right mess." Gerik's voice came across clearly for all that the letter was penned by a Grado scribe. Innes made note of this potential security risk and decided to send Gerik a trustworthy Frelian secretary. But the sum of Gerik's findings proved worse than any rumor Innes had yet heard. Corruption was rampant- every public office from judge to ratcatcher was up for sale, and the military, the last bastion of honest men, in the aftermath of Duessel's death had become every bit as debased and politicized as the civil service. Only the Jehannan mercenaries kept order in check, as the demoralized Gradan army menaced the people as much as it protected them. Something else in Gerik's report bothered Innes.

Short on gold but overlong on fancy, the Renaitian governors of Grado had decided to fund reconstruction efforts through various schemes, including a "lottery" that treated slips of paper as though they had the value of gold or gems, a number of "trading bonds" that did the same, and other forms of speculation. One such scheme lured northerners and their riches down to Grado with promises of fair tracts of coastal land, all of which proved to be miasmatic swamp.

"Clever," Innes said to his most esteemed agent. "It's as mad as something the wretched Carcinese would envision."

Rennac bore the slight on his birth with the same impudent smirk he showed to all comers, up to and including his sovereign. Innes had no pleasure in the man's presence, but when he sent his spy south with orders to ferret out more on this speculation scheme, Innes knew the job would be done. Innes had a sword- figurative and literal- dangling over the rogue's head, and Rennac valued nothing as much as his own skin. Except, perhaps, the life and virtue of Her Majesty Queen L'Arachel.

-x-

Innes supposed that he did love his wife. Certainly he _enjoyed_ her- he liked to twine his fingers through her pale curls, liked even better to bring her to arch that proud neck, to make less-than-holy oaths tumble from her sacrosanct lips. Figuring out her convoluted mind and untangling her chains of illogical logic was a pastime in and of itself. And she was so often helpful to him, for L'Arachel proved one of the most efficient means of disseminating a rumor. One offhand comment made to her in private would be spread from northernmost Rausten to the southern stretches of Jehanna in three weeks' time.

"I treasure you," he would tell her honestly. If he could design for himself an ideal woman, then have that abstracted perfection brought to living, breathing reality through some miracle, the woman would not be L'Arachel. But L'Arachel had been given to him through the graces of his father and the Everlasting, and so he would set her unique gifts to use. This time, the exact use that L'Arachel would serve would hinge upon the information her pet rogue brought back from Grado.

Six solid months passed before Rennac popped up once more in Frelia.

"That's a new page," the agent commented; his face, though pocked by mosquito bites, had lost not a shred of its insolence. "Fine-looking lad. Of good breeding, I'm sure."

Innes ignored the comments regarding Vanessa's son and set about interrogating Rennac.

"Imagine a tower of rubes with other rubes perched on their shoulders- suckers carrying other suckers, going on to infinity. That's Grado."

"How colorful. Whatever do you mean?"

"There's no real money involved," said Rennac, and his eyes widened for just a moment with what might have been genuine concern. "Maybe a little bit of gold in the hands of a few at the top, and the rest of it is pure faith. People owing millions and millions in nonexistent gold and gems, all of it attested to by worthless slips of colored paper."

"How has it sustained itself for this long?"

"There's always another sucker," Rennac said, and the smirking mask slipped back into place. "Besides, these people have a faith in their ventures that would nearly put Her Majesty to shame."

"Talk lightly of Her Majesty at your own peril. How long can this scheme continue to sustain itself?"

"Funnily enough, sire, I lied a few moments ago. There_ isn't_ always another sucker. You run out of them eventually. Then the whole thing bursts like a swollen corpse."

"You're thinking of the Carcinese Goldfish Bubble of 769? I knew this entire fiasco sounded familiar."

Innes pondered the issue long after he'd dismissed Rennac. Once a speculative bubble was inflated, there seemed no way to stop it. It ran its own course like a fatal disease, and to try to burst the bubble deliberately was thought to wreak as much devastation as the bubble itself. Rennac was quite right that the supply of gullible participants would, sooner or later, run out. And then what?

-x-

The Gradan Problem robbed Innes of sleep as no problem had to date. Even as Gerik made strides in reforming the civil and military service in the former empire, the threat of the speculation bubble persisted like the insidious poison of the Demon King's monsters. Innes remembered the effect well; a harmless-looking bite or sting that drew little blood would turn out to sap the victim's strength hour by hour until the victim was either cured or died of the poison. Grado was dying by degrees- in spite of Gerik's reforms, in spite of Ephraim's praise and proclamations, in spite of the medals and honors and all the fine words.

And Innes watched from the sidelines, knowing that there was no answer on earth to save Grado now. He must simply wait, until the corpse was dead and swollen, and only then he might let his arrows fly.

"You know this goes all the way to the top," Rennac said, and he had the documents to prove it. The architect of these schemes, these oh-so-creative means of funding an empire, proved to be the errant schoolboy who'd let doomed Prince Lyon do all his lessons for him back in their youth. At the very least, Ephraim had signed off on these bond and lottery schemes, had lent his name and reputation to that first core group of speculators who now balanced themselves upon the backs of a thousand "suckers."

"If he'd remembered the Goldfish Bubble of '69, he'd have thought better of it," Innes muttered to himself. "Never did know what to do with a problem he couldn't stab."

"You look so _gloomy_," L'Arachel said to him that evening. "You need a pleasant trip to take your mind off all these burdens! Caer Pelyn is astonishing this time of year..."

Innes did not go to Caer Pelyn. He sent Vanessa, who returned from her mission with the news that yes, the mountain village was lovely. But she had nothing more to say of the village or its inhabitants, and Innes merely wondered if silence indeed meant consent.

-x-

It took two years and five months more for the disease of speculation to run its course. One fine autumn day, the truth simply spilled forth: Ephraim had no gold to pay his creditors in Carcino, no gold to pay the Jehannan mercenaries. When the bubble burst in Grado, it took the financial stability of Renais with it. All Magvel rested at the edge of catastrophe, and yet Innes found himself energized anew. After so much waiting, his moment had arrived, and his action now must be swift, clean, and terrible. The speculation disease turned out to be an analogue of gangrene- he was too late already to save a limb, and now the entire arm must now be severed, before the infection proved fatal to the whole organism.

But first, there was a little clean-up job in Frelia to do. Innes burned the relevant papers and then settled the whole issue of Rennac within twenty-four hours of "officially" learning of the financial disaster. He said nothing of it to L'Arachel. He did not have to; legally they were as one, a single will housed in two bodies. The desire of King Innes was the desire of Queen L'Arachel, and the greater good of Frelia was the greater good of Rausten. Besides, it would be some weeks- or months- before L'Arachel even noticed Rennac's absence.

His work at home done, King Innes of Frelia set off for Renais, accompanied by his favorite page, a retinue of pegasus knights, and a clear resolve. He'd laid his groundwork carefully, after all- it was the only thing he _could_ do during the last few years. Carcino agreed with him fully, Jehanna bore no dissent for his plans, and the letters sent to Caer Pelyn received no response. Innes wondered if Eirika's husband had decided that missives from the outside world were an unwelcome distraction and discarded them unread.

"This is a sorry business, Vanessa," he said to the knight at his shoulder.

"I trust in you, Your Majesty," she said only.

"You've been with me for all my battles, and I am... fortunate...to have you at my side for this one."

"I did promise never to leave your side," she said, for a moment she again seemed young and shy, a mere captain instead of a brilliant commander. "But is this a battle?"

"It will be, but I'm determined to win."

"Er, King Innes?"

"Yes?"

"Queen L'Arachel made much of the _humanitarian_ nature of this visit. She said that King Ephraim wasn't well..."

"There are times when Her Majesty says more than she knows... and times when she knows more than she says."

And they left the conversation at that.

Innes had not seen his brother-in-law in several years, and he decided that time had not been kind to Ephraim. The Renaitian king, no older than Innes, was aged beyond his years, with lines of care in his face and white strands shot through his unkempt hair. Even the piercing eyes seemed hollowed. Though not a broken man, Ephraim seemed at the least a severely dented one.

"Dear brother, our Tana would grieve to see you this way."

"Sometimes I feel as though all my good fortune died with her." Even the voice had changed; the ringing tenor that once had irritated Innes as much as it inspired their troops had grown hoarse.

Innes produced the bottle of Frelian whisky he'd brought as a gift and poured out two glasses. His informants claimed that the king of Renais alternated between immoderate drinking and outright abstinence; either he'd caught Ephraim during a intemperate phase or the lure of single-malt whisky proved too great a temptation.

"Speak of this ill fortune, if you would."

Ephraim downed the whisky in a single motion. Innes shook his glass and caused its contents to swirl in a small vortex. In the firelight, the whisky glowed like dark amber. He set the glass back upon the table untasted. He looked past Ephraim- now sitting motionless with his eyes closed- to the opposite wall and a portrait of Tana cradling her elder son. The boy had Tana's dark hair and innocent smile. Innes refilled Ephraim's glass. It was only a precaution; the first shot of whisky had already loosened Ephraim's tongue sufficiently that he could speak of the incipient disaster in Grado. Ephraim gave the account of his sorry state of affairs without regard to context or chronology. Had Innes not known intimately of these affairs, he'd never have pieced together Ephraim's statements into a sensible whole.

"This indeed is a tangled dilemma, brother. Rest assured that I will put everything at my disposal into solving this."

Ephraim reached for his glass.

"I can't fail, Innes. I've spent so many years..." His eyes seemed glazed for a moment, and he shook his head violently before continuing. "I've dreamed of the night Eirika and General Seth escaped from Renais as the castle fell. I watch them ride off with this sick feeling of hopelessness, and then I realize it's not Eirika and Seth any longer. They're my own boys, with no one to protect them save one another as they ride into the darkness."

Innes remained silent; the naked horror in the other man's voice was an uncomfortable thing to witness.

"We won't allow you to fail, Ephraim," he said in the end.

"I believe you do mean that," his brother-in-law whispered. The eyes, though smudged and bloodshot, were as vividly blue as on the day of their duel. They seemed to search Innes's face as though probing for the deeper mysteries of his soul, even as Ephraim raised the glass again to his lips.

"All Magvel yet looks to you for its inspiration. You're the beloved hero, the legend untarnished." His fingers, laced upon his knee, were still and relaxed. "I intend to make certain you remain so."

Ephraim paused in mid-swallow. He lowered his glass and cast Innes a quizzical look. The light of understanding dawned, as it usually did, a little too late.

-x-

The abrupt passing of King Ephraim cast a pall of collective sorrow over Magvel. The news was met with shock, yet in many quarters there was little surprise, as rumors of Ephraim's faltering health had traveled throughout the continent in recent weeks. At the unanimous request of the nobles and clerics of Renais, King Innes received the keeping of his young nephews, and under his tutelage they honed their skills in council as well as on the field. He arranged for the elder a brilliant marriage with the young princess of Jehanna, and to the younger son he promised the restored throne of Grado. To that end, Innes immersed himself fully in cleaning the cesspool of Grado's reconstruction efforts; more than a few men lost their heads to the king's justice, and the people grumbled that King Ephraim, if only he had lived, would have found a less messy way of dealing with things, but the results were beyond reproach. Each day, the rebirth of Magvel crept closer to realization, and each night Innes of Frelia slept the untroubled sleep of the just.

**Finis**

* * *

Author's Note: Look, Innes_ said_ he was going to destroy Ephraim. Yes, having Ephraim snuffed doesn't entirely gel with "being good at heart," but he's doing it for the sake of Tana's boys and all Magvel. OK, it's still pretty harsh... but it's not any more out of character than all the Innes/Ephraim yaoi. The idea for "General Gerik" came from his support conversations with Innes.

Epigraph again by Andrew Bird, from "Effigy" off the _Noble Beast _album.


End file.
